Since when is “understanding” tantamount to “condoning”?! Since when is desiring a “discussion” the same as saying “This is wonderful! I’m really happy you are doing this!”??
Forgot to add:
I don’t really care that you closed it, or deleted it. But I just don’t understand why the recurring theme of “understand=condoning” that is prevalent all over the SDMB. Is there some connotations or even exact definitions that I’m just not familiar with?
I never saw the thread in question, but I support the decision to excise it.
Partly on operational grounds. There may be forums where an issue of such contention can be usefully explored as a subject, but these boards are too big. SDMB is like a city, sprawling over a huge range of interests, with a constantly changing population from an extraordinarily wide range of interests. Discussion on a subject like this is unlikely to get very far without becoming a mess of people screaming at each other.
And if the OP has left, never to return, as does happen frequently, we’re no better off for it.
I also think Jodi made good points, including
But mostly also I think that this subject has unique power to engage the most emotional and vulnerable aspects of a wide range of people, and that a true free-ranging discussion is impossible, and can actually be harmful to some participants.
I have one friend whose life has been wrecked by the awful sexual abuse he suffered as a child at the hands of his father, uncle and the local catholic priest. I have another friend who was cheerfully cruising the neighbourhood parks looking to have sex with men at the age of eleven. I know that a lighthearted joking remark about the past of one is devastating (to the point of necessitating medication) if the other is present.
Surely nobody of sensitivity reading moggy’s post, with its account of persistent, lasting pain can want to enter a discussion that starts by saying “Yeah, but…”. The corrosive effect of that kind of abuse doesn’t allow for a survivor to have an area of neutral ground where the abuse can be discussed dispassionately.
I also know that anyone who has held their own child in their arms, and experienced the strong emotion that can ensue, will never see a discussion of involvement of children in sexual activity as academic.
The events of the last two weeks cast a long shadow. I’m aware that several discussions in these pages have taken on an intensity that is unsual, but understandable. We don’t need more heightened emotion right now.
The SDMB is not the only forum available, and none of us here has made the committment to fighting ignorance at the cost of our enjoyment. No artistic freedom is threatened, no constitutional rights are at stake.
We come here to be amused, entertained, challenged, informed, broadened, heartened, encouraged and validated.
I believe Czarcasm’s decision enables us to continue in quiet enjoyment of all these activities.
Redboss
I think it is offensive in the extreme to conclude that because someone has a certain sexual fantasy, that makes them a liar. Does it also make them a thief? Murderer? Embezzler? Smuggler? Wife beater? Terrorist?
Spare me.
Well. This thread went exactly as I predicted. Something is posted which is entirely over-the-top topic-wise, it is (IMO) rightfully removed and rightfully deleted, and now comes the familiar words of “how is this fighting ignorance”, “why did you delete it”, etc. Soon, there will be an affected “Oh! The irony!” and a few rolleyes smilies posted as the capper by some dipshit. Count on it.
Tuba, you gave me some advice a while ago, and I’ll return it to you, greatly paraphrased: You don’t need to justify your decision here. You don’t have to explain beyond a reasonable doubt and moral certainty why it was right to delete the thread. You don’t have to answer anyone who asks why it was deleted. Because the answer is clear-cut to a large enough portion of the Board. No matter what you do, or how hard you try to make your Board a good place, there are going to be those that are born martyrs, who relish the thought of “Help, help, we’re being oppressed by the evil Board staff!” And then, there are also going to be lots of intelligent, rational people who will simply disagree with your decision, and who you can’t make happy all the time. That is most unfortunate, but then, life sucks ass sometimes too.
You’ve made your decision. If people really want to discuss the nuances of being a pedophile they can download vBulletin and start their own goddamn Board.
I missed the thread in question but per Redboss I think we need to understand that this is a moderated board and while it may have been interesting and instructive on one level to hear a purportedly non-practicing pedophile explain his perspective I do not fault the mods for locking and then deleting the thread. That was a power they are endowed with and a decision they are trusted to make for the greater good of the board.
I would probably not participate here if it were not for the mods keeping order. For anyone interested in pedophile rationales I am certain Usenet can deliver up as many threads re this as they care to digest. Personally I believe pedophiles are cunning and dissembling predators who will say and do practically anything to satisfy their appetites. As the parent of an 11 year old boy and 14 year old girl I would kill or maim a pedophile (and I mean that frankly and literally) caught taking advantage of them without a moment’s hesitation.
Having said this, however, it is apparent that TubaDiva is to some degree making an exception in this case to delete this particular thread regarding a subject she obviously feels very deeply about. Whether it is an appropriate act for a mod or admin to summarily lock and/or close a thread because they loathe the poster or what the poster represents is not open to useful discussion.
There are threads on this board that have remained open even though my eyes were bleeding as I read about posters performing annilingus on dogs or ingesting their own sperm or mother daughter bonding moments of making art prints with their menses blood. If the mods allowed these threads to remain open I will trust they had some reasonable rationale for closing and deleting the pedo thread.
I would prefer that the board be a place where, as long as it is posted in the appropriate forum, any subject whatsoever and whithersoever can be discussed. Cannibalism, pro and con, including recipes. How to make a bong pipe from equipment you have on your office desk. Best hacking tools for gaining access to Visa and MasterCard card numbers from internet vendor portals.
I do accept that this kind of unlimited discussion isn’t a possibility, but it remains the abstract goal that I hope the mods and admins aim for.
I also sense that as our community has grown over the years, there has been a sense, developing among the mods and admins, that we can no longer have the easy openness we once had. Perhaps that’s a misperception on my part, but it does seem that restrictiveness has grown, and our posting conduct curtailed.
I do not think this is a good thing. If it is not avoidable, then it isn’t avoidable, but if there’s another way to run the board, then the closer you get to an “anything goes* – we’re all adults here” board, the better.
The asterisk is for the “don’t be a jerk” clause. I don’t mean I’d like to see the board become the playground of people who post deliberately incendiary & abusive attacks or distracting crap that adds no content and makes no contribution. And thank you, mods, for being so quick to deal with trolls and for cleaning up the misplaced and/or misbegotten posts of newbies and lost script kiddies who’ve wandered in.
But the smaller the list of proscribed subject matter, the better.
Another reason for my decision to lock off the thread-I’m pretty sure the Chicago Reader wouldn’t have appreciated NAMBLA using the SDMB as an example of Pedophilia being more suited for civilized conversation than for condemnation. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve pulled a trick of that sort.
I guess this is how the road to banning begins, but . . ,
My “buddy”? Where in the hell do you get off with that little quip, Tuba? You have known me long enough to know better than that, and since you were clearly posting as an administrator, I absolutely, positively insist you apologize for and retract that remark.
I missed the thread before it was deleted - was this a true pedophile, one who is sexually attracted to prepubescent children, or just someone who admitted to being attracted to pubescent minors? I think this is an important distinction, as the former is a serious form of mental illness while the latter is someone who has desires that are considered wrong in some cultures but not in most of the world.
As for the other matter, Anthracite is right in one regard – the mods aren’t required to justify their decisions to members. (Although, notably, she herself did not hew to her own feelings on this matter when her erotica thread was closed, and argued with Tuba about minutae like referring to erotica as “erotica.” But anyhow.) I feel that the board is better when the mods do justify their actions, but no, they don’t have to.
Czarcasm, though, chose to justify his actions, and I found his justification stupid and specious. I found it especially specious in light of the fact that there was a recent GD thread in which an SDMB reg outed himself as a pedophile – albeit one who claims to adhere strictly to age-of-consent laws – and in which the conversation took nearly exactly the same turn, in a much more combative matter to boot. And there was at least one mod posting in the thread. I don’t expect 100% consistency in decision-making, and I’m not going to fall back on “Why was this thread closed and that one left open?” But the justification offered was, IMO, stupid, and I’m going to say so.
And yes, there is a world, a universe of difference between asking questions and condoning. To analogize – poorly, of course, since I am not a member of the law enforcement community – John Douglas of the FBI and others have made careers out of asking questions of convicted serial killers. Do you think they’re “condoning” serial killing? Do you think Douglas considers Edmund Kemper and John Wayne Gacy his “buddies”? Of course not. There’s something of value to be learned. In the posts I saw before the thread was deleted, I saw nobody encouraging this person or condoning his activities and thoughts. Indeed, I saw several questions seemingly geared towards showing him how and why several of his ideas were misguided.
You want to close the thread, close the thread. Close it and don’t say another word about it. But if you are going to justify the closing, don’t offer baloney and expect everyone to say, “Yum!”
The big difference, of course, is that this man wasn’t convicted-a diference I believe I have pointed out previously. If it were true that he has yet to fulfill his desires to rape a minor, it was only because he was afraid of getting caught.
If, as you say, a pedophile such as he has posted before and gotten away with posting similarly(is this true?), then you might critisize my consistancy. I apologize for not being a perfect moderator. This, however, cannot be used as an excuse to allow other posts of his sort to go through.
phil, I typed up a long response, but deleted it simply because the thread you are referencing makes me unhappy. It was a supreme miscommunication of Biblical proportions which has resulted in a lot of very hurt feelings, and I don’t think it is a parallel situation at all.
I wasn’t picking on you at all personally with my previous post, so I wish you hadn’t got personal with me and brought this up. I thought we had forged an online respect of the other - or at least I had.
Anthracite, I got the impression that you were in fact referring to me, and if you were not, I apologize. I still think it’s noteworthy, but not noteworthy to the point of making any kind of important difference regarding how I feel about you as a poster. If I were to be nailed on every instance of my own hypocrisy, I’d have retreated from the SDMB in shame long ago.
Czarcas, would it have made an ounce of difference to you if the OP had been convicted? I suspect not. In any case, yes, it’s true concerning the other thread. Whatever else I am, I am not a liar. Feel free to find it yourself.
Question: Has the OP of the thread in question been banned?
If you dont mind me jumping in for a second, Phil,
For those who ask the question “How can we talk about Drugs, but not Pedophilia”, may I remind you that you have to make a consious decision to take drugs, but you cannot make a decision to get molested.
While they are both illegal acts, The Drug addict is hurting him/herself by their own choices.
The pederast gives his victim no choice.
We have to accept that the managements decision on this one, folks. They have every right to deny this persons point of view from being aired through their medium.
You have me at a disadvantage, phil. I cannot discuss the details of that situation, and why I think it is not hypocisy, so I will have to just repeat that I disagree, but concede the current argument to you. I also still have no quarrel with you whatsoever, and since you and I seem to easily fall into quarrels due to both of our natures, I am walking away from this.
That’s cool. In case I wasn’t clear, I was apologizing not for thinking that you were talking about me, but for taking the cheap shot. And if there are circumstances/details of which I am unaware (as it appears there are), I should have just kept my durned mouth shut. (Something at which, as everyone knows, I excel.)
Did this infamous OP really just talk about fantasies he has, and not any actually act which he’s committed or intends to commit? I didn’t know there was anything wrong with that. But I guess I didn’t read the thread so I don’t know what the tone was and what kind of things he said. But aren’t fantasies about children very common? Like in Japan, for instance.
I think anyone who makes a child participate in such a fantasy should be instantly struck dead… it’s a well-known fact that this kind of person can’t be rehabilitated. But I always thought that this kind of person is considered very different from those who merely have fantasies about the subject. I mean, a lot of people, including women, have fantasies about rape, but most of them would completely abhor it in real life.
Just asking because I couldn’t read the thread for myself, and it seems a bit odd to me…?
I find your psychic powers astonishing, Czarcasm. 
I read the thread right before it got locked. I was about to post a note begging it to be shut down.
I remember a poster who actually complimented this pedophile on his bravery. The word “courage” was used.
No, I’m sorry. No. Not allowed. The people who rushed the cockpit over Pennsylvania had courage.
Letting that thead stay open validates the man’s very sick beliefs about children and sex. I’m not suggesting that anyone here agreed with him. But I am saying there is an implied message that the says “You may be wrong in those beliefs, but we recognize you, what you’re saying has value, and you’re entitled to them.”
Sorry, sorry, sorry. It’s a free country, but sorry.
I also remember a line that went:
“If I ever felt myself going out of control, I would seek counseling.”
Think about that for a second.
Terrifying.
I suspect that the man who started the thread was getting off on it–at least intellectually.
Intellectually is enough. I don’t see how this message board has a responsibility to allow that kind of twisted gratification.